Woken up at at 4am with a torch shining in my face like some kind of FBI raid I soon grudgingly remembered the requested wakeup call. Wandering over to the bus station in the dark freezing cold through deserted streets just to go slide down a hill on a couple of planks, I must be fricking crazy.

The greyhound bus left just after 5am traveling north to Whistler with the dark slowly giving way to the early morning light illuminating the peaks of the the snow capped mountains with a pinky purple hue creating a perfect tranquil scene that went a little way to softening the early start. Following the last few days near washout I had struck lucky with a brilliant cloudless sunny day heighten my anticipation of arriving at Whistler to get started on it's 300+ runs.

Pulling into Whistler just before 8am the little alpine village was still asleep with few bodies and no queues yet formed at the ski lifts

. Of course by the time I was suited and booted I almost wondered why I got the bus here since the line was almost stretching back down to Vancouver anyway.

Taking the cable car up to the mid-point station on Whistler mountain I stepped out like everyone else doing the Frankenstein walk to take in the unbelievable mountain scenery looking so beautiful with it's snow covered mountains glistening beneath the blue sky. Remembering why those things are on my feet I set off down my first run of the day taking until I reached the bottom to find my snow legs not having skied for about 3 years.

Given the size of Whistler Blackcomb the two mountains with there huge number of runs between them can easily accommodate large numbers meaning that people were spread out so the lift queues were only ever a few minutes long at most. Still enough people though to try and distract those skiing beneath the chair lifts on the way up, "Oi, you've dropped your wallet!"

The mountain had some recent snow fall giving plenty of fresh powder to go around and that oh so satisfying whump noise of gliding though it. I had never seen 2-3 feet of snow before, on tree branches that is, managing to escape sight of anyone else on some of the upper runs gliding through the tree lined runs feeling like you were the only person on the entire mountain.

Reaching the top of Whistler peak the temperature reached a balmy -11 degrees but gave an amazing alpine mountain panorama every which way you looked with the mountains continuing on as far as you could see, which was a hell of a long way today.

With only a day in hand to spend on the slopes here I made the most of it skiing for around 6-7 hours straight which by the end of the day my spirit was still willing to continue but my legs gave me a clear 'screw you!' in reply as I dunked it once more on the way down. Even more glad of that powdered snow now.